James Coutts v. Sir Francis Blake

This case addressed the court's jurisdiction to resolve a dispute over fishing rights in the river Tweed, where that river forms the border between Scotland and England. Pursuer James Coutts claimed that defender Sir Francis Blake of Twizell, who possessed a fishing right on the English side of the Tweed, had demolished a portion of Coutts’s dam, causing severe harm to his fishery. Blake claimed that the alleged demolition site was on the English side of the border, and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts. Many local residents are mentioned in case documents.